Friday, December 30, 2011

Is this the first insert I ever pulled?

Perry & Fingers were paired on this card in honor of the 1978 season together on the San Diego Padres... a season that saw Perry become the first pitcher in MLB history win a Cy Young Award in both leagues... and Fingers tie the (then) NL single season save record with 37 saves, which earned him the 1978 NL Rolaids Relief Award.

1984 Donruss #B Johnny Bench & Carl Yastrzemski

Donruss used this card to honor the retirement of two baseball legends... both 1st ballot HOFer's (as predicted on the back of the card).

The Bench/Yastrzemski card was recently purchased off of COMC for $.50, but the Perry/Fingers has been in my collection since the day I freed it from it's wax wrapper back in 1984. I remember sitting at my family room table thinking, "what the heck is this card?". And, "why is there a letter instead of a card number?".

Back then there weren't any card shops in my neighborhood and I didn't own a price guide with information on this set. As for checklists... I don't remember exactly which ones I owned. But even if I did have the last unnumbered one, it only lists cards numbered up to #651(The San Diego Chicken).

Which means... I was one confused kid. In fact, I'm still confused.

Do you consider the two Living Legends cards from the 1984 Donruss set to be base cards or inserts?

According to Beckett, these two cards were "issued as bonus cards in wax packs, but were not issued in the factory sets sold to hobby dealers". Sounds like insert cards to me. Either way... all four of these Living Legends ended up in Cooperstown. Hopefully, Mr. Chicken will receive his call to the hall in the near future.

10 comments:

2.) Can't remember. Picked up cards on occasion from 1991-96, but only really started to collect in the summer of '96. There were almost certainly a few in my early period, but no idea what. At that point where I really started collecting, there was a Fleer Ultra Double Trouble Shaq that features prominently in my memories, but I'm not sure it was one I pulled. So I honestly don't know for sure. It was an enjoyable exercise thinking back though. Good times...

3.) Does 1969 Topps Deckle Edge count as an insert? I'm not sure exactly how they were released. But if so, that's probably it for me.

I have a bunch of 1960's oddball inserts (I did not pull them personally, though). The '65 embossed, the '64 coins, the '61 stamps, the '69 stamps. The list goes on and on and they are all nifty neato.

My first was a 1991 Donruss Elite Rickey Henderson #'d /10000. First numbered card I had ever seen. I traded it to a dealer at a show straight up for a Julius Erving RC. It was a great deal for me, but the Erving was later stolen. Aaawwwwww... poor me!

Those are definitely inserts. The first ones i remember pulling were the all star inserts from 1986 fleer cello packs - i remember getting about 10 gorman thomas cards with rickey henderson, who i was collecting, being very illusive.

thanks to everyone who confirmed my suspicions that the living legends cards were inserts.

lonestar - i love those deckle edge cards. according to beckett, they're inserts... however, after some research and reading some cool blogs, i couldn't find any insertion rate information.

jacobmrley - huge fan of all of those sets you mentioned... definitely agree they're nifty neato.

the diamond king - wow! that is awesome that you pulled one of these. i've considered busting boxes of this stuff, just so i could say i pulled one of these hard to pull (lol... weird writing this since there are 10k of each player and 8 to 10 players to choose from). it's even cooler that you had enough insight to trade yours for a dr. j rookie. bummer it was stolen :(

dan - the mid to late 80's fleer all-star cards are awesome... and i love the dual picture cards from 1989. i think i have the 1989 and 1990 set, but i might go on a mission to try and build the rest of them.

arpsmith - i only have a few of the 1986 fleer all star cards, but if i'm not mistaken... i think gorman thomas and his stache is one of them.

chris p - i just checked these out on COMC and damn... they do look like a subset. i opened a bunch of 1991-92 hoops, but i guess none of it came from rack packs.

Yeah, they were rack pack only inserts. Series II had the All-Star MVP inserts in those rack packs and again, nothing but glorifed subsets to me, I got the Jordan of that too. I busted a ton of 91-92 Hoops, they were my first ever basketball cards.

About Me

I've been collecting cardboard off and on since the early 80's. I'm presently collecting. But who knows what the future holds in store for me.
One thing is for certain... I'll have my blog to help relive some of my favorite hobby moments.